Stir the Roots
by let's point out the obvious
Summary: Stan, Kenny, and the sound of the rain on the roof of their first apartment.


Wrote this for a darling friend who is a rabid Stenny fan~

South Park doesn't belong to me.

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Stan used to find the sound of the rain on the roof above his room at home relaxing. Here, it's worrying. The pounding of the rain tonight makes him feel like the roof could collapse at any moment, drowning them in a wave of water and plaster. He can hear the old building creek and groan with the blowing of the wind, and with each suspicious noise Stan becomes more and more concerned that their apartment is going to be destroyed.

Kenny doesn't seem to mind.

"This is nothing," he says, nudging the pot they used last night to make macaroni and cheese underneath another slow drip with the side of his foot, "You should've seen my parent's place when that hurricane hit a few years ago. Looked like a lake threw up in the living room."

Stan winces at that, and looks around the room again from his vantagepoint on their beaten up foldout couch.

It's not so bad, really. For a first apartment, in a part of town where they're not too likely to get mugged, for a pretty good price, it's not so bad. This is the third night they're spending here, and at least they've got the mattress moved in now. Sleeping on the couch was a bitch, and Stan still has a kink in his back from accidentally spending the night on top of Kenny's elbow.

"Still sucks, dude." Stan sighs, sinking back further into the couch cushions, puffing his cheeks out into a silly expression, trying to amuse himself in light of the somewhat depressing situation.

He's happy, really he is. He's away from the stress of college, the craziness of South Park. He's free from his parents and his lunatic sister. He's with Kenny and that makes him happier than he's been in a while.

But they're both working shitty jobs with so many hours that they barely see each other. And even though their apartment isn't so bad, and they haven't even lived there for a week, Stan isn't sure if things are going to work out. He's wondering if this is all worth it, if they made the right decisions, if they're going to have mold problems from all this rain and if they'll even be able to pay the rent three months from now. He's feeling a little homesick too, though he'll never admit to that.

Stan mopes on the couch while Kenny grabs a bag of off-brand cookies that never got put away from off of the folding card table they've been calling a kitchen table, ripping it open as he comes to join Stan on the couch, laughing at the groan of springs beneath his weight.

Stan knows that if there's one thing Kenny is enjoying about living on their own, it's the ability to buy whatever food he wants. Kenny had said, even before moving in, that if it were a question between paying the utility bill and buying whatever he wanted to eat, he'd just go without electricity or running water.

"I'm gonna start getting fat now- hope you don't mind." Kenny jokes, ignoring Stan's earlier complaint.

Stan rolls his eyes, since he figures there's no way that Kenny- skin and bones, thin as a rail-Kenny, could ever get fat. Not that he'd mind too much if he did- he just doesn't think it's ever going to happen.

Although Kenny has gained weight since they started dating, and that, at least, makes Stan happy. His mom always said that you could tell when a couple was truly happy together when they started gaining weight. These days, Kenny's ribs are definitely less visible then they were back before he and Stan started holding hands wherever they went.

Stan wonders if maybe he should hop on a scale himself, just to test that theory.

"Tomorrow-" Stan says with meaning, glancing sideways at Kenny from across the couch, "Tomorrow I'm going to the hardware store and I'm buying whatever we need to fix the ceiling."

And then he'll be telling Kenny to go out for a while, just to make sure he doesn't get struck and killed by a chunk of falling plaster.

"Aww, what?" Kenny says teasingly, leaning back against Stan so he squishes him into the battered arm of the couch, "You don't think the 'Bucket Method" is good enough?"

Still serious, Stan frowns and says, "No, it's just a quick fix," and pushes Kenny back, but gently, so he doesn't actually, accidentally hurt him.

Kenny just laughs at the push, childishly saying, "Your _Mom's_ a quick fix."

Stan rolls his eyes and tries (fails) to keep his serious expression in place.

"Dude," he sets Kenny with a smirk, "_You're_ a quick fix."

Kenny raises an eyebrow at that, then turns back to forage in his bag of cookies, humming in thought before responding with, "I think not, motherfucker."

Stan openly laughs at the obscenity, a flashback to their younger years, when Kenny would curse a blue streak for no other reason than to amuse those around him.

"Attention whore…" Stan murmurs, lost in his own memories.

That gets a reaction out of Kenny, who jerks up to look at him, confused and possibly offended.

"What?"

Stan shakes his head, still smiling dreamily, "Nothing, nothing…"

Apparently Kenny is satisfied with that, or at least with the affectionate tone of his voice, because he gives him a mock-warning glance before choosing one last cookie out of the bag, then drops the bag to the floor beside the couch.

"Yeah, better be nothing." Still joking, probably.

Stan watches as he shoves the entire cookie into his mouth with as little grace as possible, chews and swallows, then stretches, arching his back until he can reach his hands all the way behind Stan's head to pull him forward into an awkward sort of upside-down kiss.

He's such a sexy little freak. Stan thinks so, anyway.

A moment later Kenny has rolled forward, slipping off the edge of the couch and back onto his feet like a cat (maybe that's where all his lives come from?), standing over Stan and looking down at him.

"We…live together now." He says the words slowly, a smile catching his lips before washing over the rest of his face, putting a certain spark in his eyes that has Stan transfixed.

"Yup." Stan grins back at him, unable to keep from smiling when Kenny is looking at him like that.

"Yup." Kenny agrees, and smiles so big that he bites his lip a little in an effort to look less like an overexcited fool. It doesn't work.

It takes Kenny a moment to compose himself, and then he nods in agreement with some inner-decision that Stan hasn't had a part in, and says, "I'm gonna take a nap."

Stan nods as well, since he doesn't mind Kenny taking a nap. It's a good idea- something he should probably consider doing himself. He's doing just that, the considering part, as he gets up off the couch and realizes that Kenny is talking to him again.

"I'm gonna take a nap-" Kenny says again, standing at the edge of the mattress as if hesitating, "And you'll be here when I get up."

Stan stares at him, more than a little confused.

"Right?"

Slowly, Stan nods, still not quite understanding. Why wouldn't he be here when Kenny got up? At the very least he'd leave a note to tell him if he was going out.

Kenny's smile is back as he says, in a near whisper, "That is _so_ cool."

And Stan laughs. It's always the little things with Kenny, the weird things. But now that he's thinking about it, it is sort of cool. Just as cool as he thought it was the first time he woke up with Kenny in his bed back in South Park.

Kenny is still hesitating to actually get into bed, so Stan walks over, skillfully avoiding one of the trickier drips, and kisses him on the forehead.

"I'm not going anywhere." He says reassuringly, and hears Kenny breathe the smallest sigh of relief, of joy.

He looks so cute in that instant, that Stan can't help but push him back onto their mattress. It's far too easy, and far too much fun to watch the shift in expression on Kenny's face as he drags his pants down, holds him by one hip, and jerks him off.

Later, when the only sounds in the room are Kenny's noticeably heavier breathing and the light dripping of what seems like a hundred different rain drops into bowls, Kenny asks him, "What was that for?"

"Because I love you." Is Stan's answer, because he knows that's the response that'll make Kenny blush in ways sexual innuendo never will, and curl up against him to hide his face. Because god knows, it's true.

And he realizes that now he's going to have to take their sheets to the laundromat later, and Stan's never actually been to a laundromat before, so he's not entirely sure how that'll work, but he doesn't mind.

This was worth it- it's all worth it.

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Thanks for reading!


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